


shards of glass (shards of ice)

by icoulddothisallday



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Post-Credits Scene, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, Depression, Hopeful Ending, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-29
Updated: 2016-05-29
Packaged: 2018-07-11 00:31:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7015732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icoulddothisallday/pseuds/icoulddothisallday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve is so cold. He doesn’t think he’ll ever be warm again. All that is left of him is in the ice with Bucky, everything good and right in the world is in the ice with Bucky.<br/>A Post-Credits Scene fix-it of sorts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	shards of glass (shards of ice)

**Author's Note:**

> You can all blame/thank [singforabsolution](http://archiveofourown.org/users/singforabsolution) for this.  
> Please heed tags. Triggers for depression.

Steve keeps it together because it’s _Bucky_ and Steve would do anything for him. Bucky hasn’t gotten to make his own choices, control his own fate, in over seventy years and Steve was the one who let him fall and he owes him this. Owes him everything.

Bucky fell like Steve fell, down into the cold and the ice and the water, waking to things that were unfamiliar and unfriendly. Bucky had it a thousand times worse than Steve ever did, so he keeps his face set and even and lets Bucky go under again because that’s what Bucky wants. It’s what he’s choosing for himself and Steve has just fought for everyone's right to _choose._

But he wishes Bucky had chosen to stay with him.

T’challa has been kind and generous and set them all up with a guest house while they figure out their next move. No one is happy, really. Clint misses his family with an intensity that is all too familiar. Wanda pines for Vision and the familiarity of home, even if she won’t say so. Steve doesn’t know Scott well enough to know what he’s missing, but he paces the confines of their guest house with a look of conflict most of the day. Sam jokes about being in trouble with his ma, but Steve can see the real worry that lives in his eyes.

Steve wants to be a good leader, he wants to take care of his team, of the people who stood beside him. But all he can see is Bucky, under the ice, his face pale and blue and frozen. Steve is always cold, despite the clinging tropical heat, and he tries not to show it, but it’s all been too much. Everything is too much, like shards of glass (shards of ice) in his skin. He’s been living with them for a long time now and he's not sure he can keep getting up when they cut his legs from under him.

The day after Bucky goes under the ice, Steve doesn’t get out of bed. He had dreamed of falling, plummeting through the sky, of Peggy’s voice and the crash of waves. No one thinks he was awake, no one thinks he remembers the water slowly filling his lungs, the creeping cold that settled deep into his bones as he drowned and froze and his body fought even though all he wanted to do was _sleep_. No one ever thought to ask.  

He’s lost everything now, everything that he ever wanted, every tie to the the life he dreamed of.Steve is a relic of times gone past, like those pens Tony had brought him. He's better left in some dusty old corner, locked away where he can’t hurt anyone, where he can’t get anything wrong ever again. He doesn’t want this anymore, he doesn’t want to get up and fight another day, he doesn’t want to lead, he doesn’t want to be Captain America.

He wants to be Steve and he wants Bucky.

But Bucky chose the ice, the broken shards of hurt, forgetting, and idling, and frozen, over Steve and Steve understands, of course he does, even if he’d chosen the ice when he couldn't have Bucky. He thinks that there is nothing left of Steve Rogers, only an empty shell, so why would Bucky choose to stay? There is no one - nothing - to stay for. 

He thinks he’s been trying to be a hero for too long and he thinks he’s done. He wishes that he could have left Captain America behind with the shield. He wishes it was that easy.

Steve is so cold. He doesn’t think he’ll ever be warm again. All that is left of him is in the ice with Bucky, everything good and right in the world is in the ice with Bucky.

Steve doens’t leave his room for a week.

He dreams.

_...his hands can never reach just far enough and there is ice and cold biting into his cheeks and if the serum had made him just a little bit taller just a little bit stronger just a little bit faster he would have caught him and what point is there to the changes if he can’t save the one person who has always been by steve’s side, what’s the point…_

_...peggy sounds like she might be crying over the line and steve hurts for her and for what he’s giving up but he knows it's right, knows it's going to be okay, because he let bucky fall and now he has to fall too, because he would follow bucky to the ends of the earth, had followed him behind enemy lines with a tin shield and a costume helmet, would follow him a million times into the ice and the dark and down and down and down…_

_….water fills his lungs and he can’t feel his toes and in a way this is sort of familiar, this is an asthma attack, this is pneumonia, this is every winter every illness every time steve has ever almost died, but this time there is no solid hand on his back, helping him cough up the gunk that clogs his airways and steve drowns…_

_...bucky is drowning, water creeping into his lungs and steve is standing there and he is frozen, he cannot move his body, and bucky is drowning, and steve can’t do anything and bucky tells him it’s better this way and it can’t possibly be better this way, bucky is drowning and that was steve's job…_

It’s Sam who forces his way inside on the seventh day, taking in Steve with a muttered _“Jesus.”_ Steve knows he looks bad. He managed two showers this week because even with the water hot enough to scorch, the drops on his face sent him spiraling and panicking and Steve doesn’t have any endurance left to push it back and soldier on. His hair clings to him, too greasy, and he stinks of BO. He’s barely managed to eat, and the way his body runs now, that means he’s lost twice what a normal person would. He’s covered the windows, leaving the room in gloom because he can’t stand to look at the world, can’t stand the sunlight on his face, doesn’t deserve it, not while Bucky lies in the ice.

“Fuck, Steve.” Sam is making his way through the room and Steve is ashamed. He turns his back on his friend, lets himself feel Sam sitting on the edge of the bed, hear his breathing and tries not to feel anything. “Shit,” Sam swears. He puts a hand on Steve’s back. The warmth doesn’t reach past Steve’s skin, doesn’t that him out the way it might have three weeks ago. He is past reaching, he is done.

“I’m done, Sam. I’m just...I’m done.” Sam winces and Steve doesn’t know long how they sit there, Sam’s hand on his back, Steve utterly still, frozen. There is nothing but their breath.

Finally, Sam speaks again. “Hold on for me, man, okay? Just hold on. I’ve got an idea.”

Steve doesn’t have room for hope and he lets Sam leave. He closes his eyes and he sleeps.

_...bucky is whole, dressed to the nines in his dress uniform,and brooklyn is all around them, but it’s winter and there’s snow on the ground and bucky isn’t smiling, he’s sneering and pushing steve into the ice and telling him to stay there, because bucky needs to get away from him, and if the only way to do that is to go to war, then that’s what he’s going to do and if it kills him then it's on steve…_

_...he’s at a wedding, peggy all dressed in white and bucky in a tux and steve doesn’t understand at first, but no one can see him, and bucky’s toasting ‘stevie, who saved the world and left me this beautiful dame’ and peggy’s rolling her eyes but everyone is soft and still for a moment before the festivities begin and steve is just a ghost in people’s mind and yes, this is how it was supposed to be, this what it was always supposed to be…_

_...there is a creature made of ice and stone and steel who chases him through the streets of brooklyn and steve is small and his lungs are tight and wheezing, his spine crooked and aching, and he hurts in a way that he hasn’t hurt for years and he’s trying to outrun it, he’s trying to make his life last just a little bit longer, one more winter, one more illness, one more fight, and the creature is reaching for him, steve can feel the cold on the back of his neck and then bucky is there, pushing steve out of the way and then bucky is gone and it was always supposed to be steve, steve was never supposed to outlive bucky, steve was always going to go first, he wasn’t strong enough to live without bucky…_

There is a body climbing into bed with him and at first Steve thinks he’s dreaming, because he knows that body like he knows his own and he turns and it’s Bucky, so he must be dreaming. Bucky is looking down at him with concerned eyes, like every time Steve got sick, and he’s putting his hand on Steve’s face. And Steve doesn’t care if this is a dream, he turns into his friend, buries his head in his chest like they are sixteen and seventeen again and the world is still a safe place, filled with warmth and sunshine and love.

Steve can’t remember crying. He doesn’t know what it should feel like, if you should feel like there’s a rock sitting in your throat and a clawed beast in your chest and your eyes turned to coal as his whole body shakes with sobs. Steve didn’t cry when Bucky fell. He didn’t cry when the serum burned his bones. He didn’t cry when his mother died, or when he was ill, or beaten, or injured, or teased.

“Stevie, shit, Stevie. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, why didn’t you ask me ta’ - Stevie. I’m here. I’m here, til the end of the line, I swear. I’m not gonna leave you alone no more.”

The words feel like a match being struck in his heart.

 

_Fin._


End file.
